Uneasy Rhetoric

An article in today’s Bee bids farewell to chef Mark Liberman of the Cascades restaurant in Roseville. Liberman has some interesting things to say about the state of culinary arts in Sacramento. Briefly, he claims that Sacramentans don’t know how to eat.

Point: He’s right. In many respects, Sacramento and its environs is a culinary backwater. The most buzz-inducing restaurants are chains like P.F. Changs or the Cheesecake Factory. Sacramento Magazine’s annual best-of lists are always awash in suburban chain eateries. And he’s right that menus at even the best restaurants seem to be conservative, preferring variations on steak, pasta, and normal seafood.

Counterpoint: He’s wrong. Lieberman bases his conclusion on the idea that Sacramentans won’t eat daring foods like trotters (pigs’ feet). Yes, a chef is an artist, and the best artists challenge all of us. However, the true mark of a chef is how he can challenge a diner’s palate by improving on the basics. A chef’s job is not to force new tastes down a diner’s throat. His complaint that restaurateurs only want to make money is laughable; restaurants are a business, and one of the most risky businesses one can undertake. Of course restaurateurs are going to build menus of items that people will buy.

Synthesis: Roseville is not Sacramento. It is part of the conservative, white crust that surrounds America’s most diverse city. I don’t care how good a restaurant it might be, I will not drive all the way out to Roseville when I can have my choice of fine restaurants here in town, and I am quite a daring eater. Liberman might see things differently if he spent time in the city.

Sacramento area residents should take Lieberman’s criticisms to heart and try new things. On the other hand, Lieberman should realize that Sacramento does have a vibrant (and growing) community of restaurants, and not all of them are part of the Paragary’s empire.